
Class _^ 

Book 



ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE, 



BY REV. T. M. EDDY, D. D., 
it 



PELITEBED AT A 



■(Union Meeting, nefil in the Presbyterian ©uirch, 



WAUKEOAN ILLINOIS, 



wi^distjesd^vy, .a-pr-ii., io, i860, 



THE DAT UPON WHICH THE FUNERAL SERVICES OP THE PRESIDENT WERE 

CONDUCTED IN WASHINGTON, AND OBSERVED THROUGHOUT 

THE LOYAL STATES AS ONE OF MOURNING. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. N^V 




CHICAGO : 

PRINTED AT THE METHODIST BOOK DEPOSITORY. 



CHARLES PHILBRICK, PRINTER. 
1S65. 



COEEESPOj^DE^OE. 



Waukegan, April 19, 1865. 
Rev. T. M. Eddy, D. D. : 

The undersigned having listened with much interest and profit to 
your eloquent eulogy this day spoken before the citizens of this town, 
upon the Life and Death of President Lincoln, unite in requesting a 
copy for publication. We feel that much good would come to the 
community from a calm perusal of the thoughts so fitly uttered on the 
occasion. 

H. W. Blodgett, D. Brewster, 

C. W. Upton, W. H. P. Wright, 

W. J. Lucas, C. L. Wright, 

C. G. BUELL, M. M. BlDDLECEW, 

P. W. Edwards, A. P. Yard, 

B. S. Ken.mcott, Wm. C. Tiffany, 

S. S. Greenleaf, R. Douglas, 

Joseph Mallon, James Y. Cory. 



Editorial Rooms, Northwestern Christian Advocate, ) 
66 Washington Street, Chicago, April 24, 1865. S 

Messrs. Blodgett, Upton and Others : 

Gentlemen — Your note is before me. 
You know the time for the preparation of that discourse was very 
brief. You are also aware, doubtless, that though spoken from copious 
notes, much of it was extemporized, and that I cannot reproduce 
those passages. But such as it is, I place it in your hands, as my 
humble tribute to the name and the virtues of our murdered President. 
With much respect, gentlemen, 

Yours truly, T. M. Eddy. 



MEMOEIAL DISOOUESE. 



" In tlie day of" adversity consider." 

It is the day of adversity. A great grief throws its 
shadow over heart and hearth and home. There is such 
a sorrow as this land never knew before ; agony such as 
never until now wrung the heart of the nation. In man- 
sion and cottage, alike, do the people bow themselves. 

We have been through the Red Sea of war, and across 
the weary, desert marches of griefs and bereavements, 
but heretofore we have felt that our leader was with us, 
and believed that surely as Moses was led by the pillar 
of cloud and of fire, so did God lead him. 

But now that leader is not. Slain, slain by the hand 
of the assassin, murdered beside his wife ! The cost- 
liest blood has been shed, the clearest eye is closed, the 
strongest arm is nerveless — the Chief Magistrate is no 
more. " The mighty man cries bitterly ; the day is a 
day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of 
wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom- 
iness, a day of clouds and thick darkness." 

It is no mere official mourning which hangs its sad 
drapery everywhere. It is not alone that a President of 
the Republic is, for the first time, assassinated. No ; there 
is the tender grief that characterizes the bereavement of a 



loved friend, which shows there was something in this 
man which grappled him to men's hearts us with hooks 
of steel. 

But mourning the death of the Chief Magistrate, it 
becomes us to review the elements of his career as a 
ruler, which have so endeared him to loyal hearts. 

If I were to sketch the model statesman, I would say 
he must have mental breadth and clearness, incorruptible 
integrity, strength of will, tireless patience, humanity, 
preserved from demoralizing weakness by conscientious 
reverence for law, ardent love of country, and, regulating 
all, a commanding sense of responsibility to God, the 
Judge of all. These, though wrapped in seeming rustic 
garb, were found in Abraham Lincoln. lie had mental 
breadth and clearness. In spite of a defective early ed- 
ucation, he. became a self-taught thinker, and later in life 
he read widely ami meditated profoundly, until he ac- 
quired a thorough mental discipline. He possessed tho 
power to comprehend a subject at once in the aggregate 
and in its details. His eye swept a wide horizon and 
descried dearly all within its circumference. He was a 
keen Logician, whose apt manner of " putting thin b" 

made him more than a match for practiced diplomatists 
and wily marplots. There were men of might about his 
OOUncil-board, scholars and statesmen, but none arose 
to his altitude, much less was either his master. 
Thai very faoetiousness Bometimes oritcised, kept him 

from becoming morbid, and gave heal thfulness to his 
Opinions, free alike from fever and paralysis. That his 

was incorruptible integrity, no man dare question. Be 
was not merely above reproach, but eminently above 



7 

suspicion. Purity is receptive. " Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they shall see God'' is as profound in phi- 
losophy as comprehensive in theology. Parity in the 
realm of moral decision and motive, is a skylight to the 
soul, through which truth comes direct. Abraham Lin- 
coin was so pure in motive and purpose, looked so in- 
tensely after the right that he might pursue it, that he 
saw clearly where many walked in mist. 

Without developing the characteristics of the ideal 
statesman analytically, let us see how they were mani- 
fest in his administration. 

It began amid the rockings of rebellion. A servile 
predecessor, deplorably weak, if not criminal, had per- 
mitted treason to be freely mouthed in the national 
capitol, treasonable action to be taken by State author- 
ities, and armed treason to resist and defy federal 
authority, and environ with bristling works the forts and 
flag of the Union. At such a juncture, Mr. Lincoln, 
then barely escaping assassination, was inaugurated. 
As was right, he made all proper efforts for conciliation, 
tendered the olive-branch, proposed such changes of 
existing laws, and even of the Constitution, as should 
secure Southern rights from the adverse legislation of a 
sectional majority. All was refused, and traitors said, 
" We will not live with you. Though you sign a blank 
sheet and leave us to fill it with our own conditions, we 
will not abid^ with you." 

Refusing peace, war was commenced, not by the Pres- 
ident, but by secessionists. War has been waged on a 
scale of astounding vastness for four years, and Mr. Lin- 
coln falls as the day of victory dawns. 



8 

His claim to the character of a great statesman is to 
be estimated in view of the fiery ordeal which tried him, 
and not by the gauge of peaceful days. In addition to 
the most powerful armed rebellion ever organized, he 

was confronted by a skillful, able, persistent, well com- 
pacted partisan opposition. He was to harmonize sec- 
tional feelings as antagonistic as Massachusetts and Ken- 
lucky, and to rally to one flag generals as widely apart 
in sentiment and policy as Phelps and Fitz John Porter. 
That under such difficulties he sometimes erred in judg- 
ment and occasionally failed in execution, is not strange, 
for he was a man, but that he erred so seldom, and that 
he so admirably retrieved his mistakes, shows that he 
was more by far than an ordinary man ; more by far 
than an average statesman. Standing where we do to- 
day, we feel that he was divinely appointed for the cri- 
sis; that he was chosen to he the .Musts of our 
pilgrimage, albeit, he was 1" die at Pisgah and he 

buried against Beth-Peor, while a Joshua should be com- 
missioned to lead us into the land of promise. 

In studying tin' administration of these four eventful 
years, it seems to me there were four grand landmarks 
of principle governing him, ever visible to the eye of the 
President, by which he steadily made his way. 

I. Thk Union is Incapable ok Division. 

In his first Inaugural lie said : "I hold that in COn- 
tcmplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the 

Onion of these States is perpetual." In his reply to 
Fernando Wood, then Mayor of New Fork, he B&id, 
" There is nothing thai could ever bring me willingly to 
consent to tin- destruction of the Union." By this rule 



9 

he walked. The Union was one for all time, and there 
was no authority for its division lodged anywhere. He 
would use no force, would exercise no authority not 
needed for this purpose. But Avhat force icas needed, 
whether moral or physical, should be employed. Hence 
the call for troops. Hence the marching armies of the 
Republic, and the thunder of cannon at the gates of 
Vicksburg, Charleston and Richmond. Hence the sus 
pension of the habeas corpus, the seizure and occasional' 
imprisonment of treason-shriekers and sympathizers, for 
which he has been denounced as a tyrant by journals, 
which, slandering him while living, have the effrontery 
to put on the semblance of grief and throw lying em- 
blems of mourning to the wind ! For the exercise of 
that authority, he went for trial to the American people, 
and they triumphantly sustained him. 

II. The second grand regulating idea of his adminis- 
tration may be best stated in his own words : " Govern- 
ment of the People by the People, for the Peo- 
ple." He conceded the people to be the Government. 
Their will was above the opinion of secretaries and gen- 
erals. He recognized their right to dictate the policy of 
the administration. Their majesty was ever before him 
as an actual presence. On the 11th of February, 1861, 
he said, in Indianapolis, " Of the people when they rise 
in mass in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their 
country, it may be said, ' The gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against them,' " and again, " I appeal to you to 
constantly bear in mind that with you, and not with 
politicians, not with the President, not with office-seek- 
ers, but with you rests the question, Shall the Union and 



10 

si i all the liberties of this country be preserved to the 
latest generation?" Again, on that memorable jonrney 
to Washington, he said, " It is with you, the people, to 
advance the great cause of the Union and the Constitu- 
tion." " I am sure I bring a time heart to the work. 
For the ability to perform it, I must trust in that Su- 
preme Being who has never forsaken this favored land, 
through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent 
people." In his first Inaugural he said: " This country, 
with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it." 
" The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people." " Why should there not be a patient confidence 
in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any bet- 
ter or any equal hope in the world ?" 

These sentences were utterances of a faith within him. 
In the people he had faith. He saw them only lower 
than the King of kings, and they were to be trusted and 
obeyed. 

Yet this man who thus trusted and honored the people, 
who so reverenced their authority, and bowed before 
their majesty, has been called '•tyrant," "usurper," by 
men who now would make the world forget their infamy 
by patting on badges of woe, and who seek to wash out 
the record of their slander by such tears as crocodiles 
Bhed ! Out upon the miserable dissemblers ! 

When the people had spoken, he bowed to their man- 
date. When it became necessary to anticipate their 

decision, he did so, calmly trusting their integrity and 
intelligence. He considered their wishes in theconstitu* 
lion of his cabinet, in the ohoioe of military command- 
ers, in the appointment of Chief Justice of the Supreme 



11 

Courc of the United States, and in the measures he 
recommended to Congress. 

The people proved worthy the trust. They promptly 
took every loan asked for the relief of the treasury and 
sustained the national credit. They answered all his 
calls for men. They sprang into the ranks, shouting 

" We are coming, Father Abraham." 

They cheerfully laid down life at his word. So far from 
this conflict proving a republic unfit to make war, or that 
for its prosecution there must be intensely centralized 
authority, it has demonstrated that a democracy trusted, 
is mightier than a dictatorship. 

III. His third towering landmark was the eight of 
all mex to fkeedoji. And here with his practical 
sense and acute vision he rose to a higher, and I think 
a healthier, elevation than that of many heroic anti- 
slavery leaders. They were anti-slavery. Their lives 
were spent in attack. They sought to destroy a system; 
they told its wrongs and categoried its iniquities. 

He knew that light, let in, will cast out darkness, and 
that kindled warmth will drive out cold. He knew that 
freedom was better than slavery, and that when men see 
that it is so, they will decree freedom instead of slavery. 
He therefore entered the lists foe feeedom. He spoke 
of its inestimable blessings, and then unrolling the immor- 
tal Declaration of Independence claimed that, with all 
its dignity and all its endowments, liberty is the birth- 
right of all mex. He taught the American people that 
the inalienable right of all men to liberty was the first 
utterance of the young Republic, and that her voice must 



12 

be stifled so long as slavery lives. In his Ottawa speech 
he said: "Henry Clay — my beau-ideal of a statesman — 
the man for whom I fought all my humble life, once 
said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies 
to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that they must, if 
they would do this, go back to the era of our independ- 
ence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual 
joyous return; tiny must blow out the moral lights 
around as, they must penetrate the human soul and eradi- 
cate there the love of liberty, and then, and not till then, 
could they perpetuate slavery in this country.''' 

lie laid his spear in rest and went forth with armor on, 
the champion of freedom. He claimed -he sin mid walk 
the world everywhere, untrammeled and free to bless the 
lowest as well as the highest. It was not right and nev- 
er could be made right, to forbid working lawfully that 
all men might be free. Slavery debased — freedom Lifted 
up. Slavery corrupted, freedom purified. Freedom 
might be abused, but slavery was itself a colossal abuse. 

He was no dreaming visionary, but stated with com- 
manding clearness the doctrine of equality before the law, 
or political equality, distinguishing it from social equal- 
ity. In old Independence Hall, in 1861, he said of the 
Colonies: "I have often enquired of myself what great 
principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy bo 

long together. It was not the mere matter of the sepa- 
ration of t lie Colonies from the mother land, but the sen- 
timent in the Declaration of Independence which gave 

liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I 

hope to the world for all future time. Il wafl that which 

. •■ promise that in due time the weight should be 



13 

lifted from the shoulders of all men.'' He held that 
instrument to teach that " nothing stamped with the 
Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to 
be trodden on, degraded and imbruted by its fellows." 

We search vainly for a clearer and terser statement 
of the true theory of equality than he gave last autumn 
in an address to a Western regiment. "We have, as all 
will agree, a free government, where every man has a 
right to be equal with every other many Has a right to 
be! Take the fetters from his limbs, take the load of dis- 
ability from his shoulders, give him room in the arena, 
and then if he cannot succeed with others, the failure is 
his. But he has the right to try. You have no right 
to forbid the trial. If he will try for wealth, fame, polit- 
ical position, he has the right. Let him exercise it and 
enjoy what he lawfully wins. 

With such views he came to the presidency. Here he 
was an executive officer, bound by the Constitution, and 
charged with its maintenance and defense. He was to 
take the nation as the people placed it in his hands, rule 
it under the Constitution and surrender it unbroken to 
his successor. Accordingly he made to the Southern 
States all conceivable propositions for peace. Slavery 
should be left without federal interference. They madly 
rejected all. War came. He saw at the outset that 
slavery was our bane. It confronted each regiment, per- 
plexed each commander. It Avas the Southern commis- 
sariat, dug Southern trenches and piled Southern breast- 
works. 

But certain Border States maintained a quasi loyalty 
and clung to slavery. They were in sympathy with re- 



14 

bellion, but wore the semblance of* allegiance and with 
consequential airs assumed to dictate the policy of the 
President. He was greatly embarrassed. lie made 
them every kind and conciliatory offer, but all was 
refused. Slavery on the gulf and on the border, in 
Charleston and in Louisville, was the same intolerant, 
incurable enemy of the Union. He struck it at last. 
The Proclamation of Emancipation came, followed in 
due time by the recommendation that the Constitution be 
so amended as forever to render slavery impossible in 
State or Territory. For these acts he was arraigned 
before the American people on the 8th of last Novem- 
ber, and received their emphatic approval. 

In a letter written to a citizen of Kentucky, the Presi- 
dent gave an exposition of his policy so transparent, that 
I reproduce it in this place. It is his sufficient explana- 
tion and vindication. 

"Exkcttive Mansion, Washington, ) 
" April 4, 1864. )' 

A. (J. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Ky. 

".1/7 Dear Sir : — You ask me to put in writing tlio Bubstance of 
what I verbally Btated the other day, in your presence, to Governor 
Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows: 

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong nothing is 

wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel ; and yet 
I hare never understood that the Presidency conferred upon mean 
unrestricted right t<> act officially in this judgment and feeling. It 
was in the oath I t<>"k that I would to the best of my ability preserve, 
protect and defend the Constitution of the United Stales. I could 
not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it in my view 
that I might take the oath to get power, and break the <>.itli in using 
the power. I understood, too, thai in ordinary civil administration 
this oath e\en forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract 
judgment on the moral question of slavery. 1 had publicl) declared 

this many limes and in many ways; and I aver that, l" this day, I 

have done no official act In mere deference to niy abstract judgment 



15 



and feeling on slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to 
preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me 
the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that govern- 
ment, that nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law. 
Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the Constitution? 
By general law, life and limb must be protected ; yet often a limb 
must be amputated to save a life, but a life is never wisely given to 
save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might 
become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the 
Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, 
I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that to the 
best of my ability I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to 
save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of gov- 
ernment, country, and Constitution altogether. When, early in the 
war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, 
because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a 
little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the 
arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an in- 
dispensable necessity. When, still later, General Hunter attempted 
military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not yet think the 
indispensable necessity had come. When, in March and May and 
July, 1862, 1 made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States 
to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable ne- 
cessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come, 
unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and 
I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surren- 
dering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong 
hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, 
I hoped for greater gain than loss ; but of this I was not entirely con- 
fident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our for- 
eign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white 
military force — no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, 
it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, sea- 
men, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, 
there can be no caviling. We have the men ; and we could not have 
had them without the measure. 

" And now let any Union man who complains of the measure test 
himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebel- 
lion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking three 
[one ?] hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and 
placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. 
If he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot face 
the truth. 



16 

"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In tell- 
ing this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim 
not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have 
controlled me. Now, at the end (if three years' struggle, the nation's 
condition is not what either party or any man desired or expected. 
God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God 
now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the 
North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity 
in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new causes to attest 
and revere the justice and goodness of God. 

" Yours truly, A. Lincoln." 

He struck slavery because slavery had clutched the 
throat of the Republic, and one of the twain must die! 
Mr. Lincoln said, Let it be slavery ! 

Christianity, declaring the brotherhood of race, re- 
demption and retribution answered, So be it ! The Bible, 
sealed by slave-codes to four millions for whom its truths 
were designed, answered Amen! The gospel long fet- 
tered by the slave-master's will, and instead of an evangel 
of freedom made to proclaim a message of bondage, lift- 
ed up its voice in thanksgiving. Marriage, Long dishon- 
ored, put on its robes of purity, and its ring of perpetual 
covenant, and answered Amen, ami from above, God's 
strong angels and six-winged cherubim, bending earth- 
ward, shouted their response to the edict of the Great 
Emancipator ! 

1 V. The next controlling idea was 

PB0F01 \l> RELIGIOUS DEPEN DEN( E. 

As a public man, he set Go3 before his eyes, and did 
reverence to the Most High. It was deeply a touching 
Bcene as he stood upon tie' platform of the oar which 
was to oarry him from bis Springfield home, and t < :ir- 
fully asked his neighbors and old friends that they 
should remember him in their prayers. Amid tears ami 



17 

sobs they answered " We will pray for you." A^ain 
and again has he publicly invoked Divine aid, and asked 
to be remembered in the prayers of the people. His 
second Inaugural seems rather the tender pastoral of a 
white-haired bishop than a political manifesto. 

What were his personal relations to his God, I know 
not. We are not in all things able to judge him by our 
personal standard. How much etiquette may have 
demanded, how much may have been yielded to the tyr- 
anny of custom we cannot tell. In public life he was 
spotless in integrity and dependent upon Divine aid. He 
had made no public consecration to God in church 
covenant, but we may not enter the sanctuary of his in- 
ner life. He constantly read the holy oracles, and recog- 
nized their claim to be the inspired Scriptures. 

He felt that religious responsibility when he sent forth" 
the Proclamation of Emancipation closing with this sub- 
lime sentence: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to 
be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, on 
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

In one of the gloomy hours of the struggle he said to 
a delegation of clergymen : " My hope of success in this 
great and terrible struggle rests on that immutable foun- 
dation, the justice and goodness of God. And when 
events are very threatening, and prospects very dark, I 
still hope, in some way which men cannot see, all will be 
well in the end, because our cause is just and God is on 
our side." 

If, as the executive officer of the nation he erred, it 



18 

was in excessive tenderness in dealing with criminals. 
Unsuspecting and pure, he could not credit unmixed 
guilt in others, and with difficulty could he bring himself 
to suffer condign punishment to be inflicted. There 
were times when he was inflexible. In vain did wealth 
and position plead for Gardner, the slave-captain. As 
vainly did they for Beall and Johnson. If he was leni- 
ent it was the error of amiableness. 

In reviewing the administration of Abraham Lincoln, 
we sec in him another of those Providentially called and 
directed leaders who have been raised up in great crises. 
Ilis name stands on the roll with those of Moses and 
Joshua, and William of Orange, and Washington. Not 
only did Providence raise him up, but it divinely vin- 
dicated his dealings with slavery. As emancipation was 
honored, did the pillar of flame light our hosts on to 
victory ! 

In the dawning morn of peace and Union has this 
Leader been slain. When the nation thought it most 
needed him, has he been basely butchered ! As the ship 
which had been rocking in the waves and Lowing before 
the storm was reaching the harbor, a pirate, who sailed 
with the passengers, basely stole on deck and shot the 

pilot at the wheel ! 

The assassin has been held in abhorrence among all 
people and in all ages. Here was a foul plot to destroy 

at one swoop the President, the officers eligible to the 
succession, the Cabinet, the Lieutenant-General, and no 
doubt the Loyal Governors of the States, That the 
scheme was successful only in part. Cod he praised. 



19 

Never has an assassination produced so terrible a shock. 

For— 

"He had borne his faculties so meek, had been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Do plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking off." 

He fell, and the whole land mourns. Secession smote 
him in her impotent death-rage, but the State lives on ! 
The reins which dropped from his nerveless hand another 
grasped, and the nation lives. No revolution comes. 
No war of rival dynasties ! The constitutional succes- 
sor is in the chief seat of power, and how much seces- 
sion has taken by this new crime remains to be seen. 

Fellow-citizens, there are some duties which press 
upon us in this hour. 

1. We must anew commit ourselves to the work of 
suppressing rebellion and re-enthroning the majesty of 
the Union and Constitution. Mr. Lincoln lived until the 
nation's flag had waved in triumph over every important 
Southern city; until the proud Southern aristocracy had 
thrown itself at the feet of its slaves, and with frantic 
outcries implored salvation at their hands ; had lived to 
walk through Richmond, and be hailed by its dusky 
freedmen as their deliverer ; had lived until he received 
the report of the surrender of Lee's grand army, and 
then he was slain. We must complete the work. On- 
ward, until it be wrought. We believe it will be soon, 
but were it a hundred years it must be accomplished ! 

2. We must complete the destruction of slavery. 
Added to its long catalogue of crimes, it has now slain 
the Lord's Anointed, the man whom he made strong ! 
Now as the Eternal liveth, it must die ! By the 



20 

agonies it has caused, by the uncofhned graves it has 
filled, by the tears it has wrung from pure •women and 
little children, by our sons and brothers starved to death 
in its mined prisons, by our beloved Chief Magistrate 
murdered, by all these do we this day swear unto the 
Lord that slavery shall die and that he -who •would save 
it shall politically die with it ! 

3. This day, as funeral rites are being said, and s<»l lS 
are coining up from a smitten household and bereaved 
people, before the Lord do we solemnly demand that jus- 
tice be done in the land upon evil-doers, that blood-guilti- 
ness may be taken away, and that men shall not dare 
repeat such crimes. 

When treason slew Abraham Lincoln, it slew the par- 
doning power, and by its own act placed authority in the 
hands of one of sterner mold and fiery soul — one deeply 
wronged by its atrocities. Now let it receivethe reward 
of its own hands! This is the demand of mercy a^ well 
as justice, that after generations may see the expiation 

of treason is t tostly for its commission. Mercy to 

the many demands the punishment of the guilty. 

The assassin of the Chief Magistrate musl be found. 

Though all seas must he crossed, all mountains ascended, 

all vallej a I rat ersed, he must be found ! If he hide him 
under the mane of the British lion, beneath the paw of 
the Russian bear or among the lilies of France, he musl 

be found and plucked thence for punisnment ! If there 

be do extradition treaty, then the Btrong hands of our 
power must make one He was a tragedian. Had he 
never read — 

" [f the assassination 
Could trammel up the const quencca and catch 



21 

With this surcease, success ; that but this blow 
Might be the be-all and the end-all here, 
****** 

" We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases 
We still have judgment liere. We but teach 
Bloody inventions, which, being taught, return 
To plague the inventors. Thus even-handed justice 
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice 
To our own lips." 

We are told that he excelled in the part of Richard 

III. Did he not remember the tent scene — 

"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain — 
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree, 
Murder, stern murder, in the darkest degree ; 
All several sins, all used in each degree, 
Throng to the bar, crying all — Guilty ! guilty ! 
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me ; 
And, if I die, no soul will pity me." 

He has murdered the Lord's Anointed, and vengeance 
shall pursue him. Tell me not, in deprecation of this 
sentiment " Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the 
Lord." Human justice has its work and must follow the 
assassin, if need be, to the very gates of hell ! It is 
God's edict that he who causelessly takes any human life, 
" By men shall his blood be shed " — how much more 
when it is such a life !* 

A morning journal, which has been somehow retained 
in the interest of wrong, of home-traitors, of misrule, has 
already impliedly put in the plea of insanity for the 

* Since the MS. of this discourse was given the printer, the assassin has met his ret- 
ribution. Hunted like a wild beast to his lair, he was surrounded by his pursuers, 
forsaken by his accomplice, the barn to which he had fled fired, then shot to death, lin- 
gering several hours in intense suffering and his remains consigned to impenetrable ob- 
scurity. Retribution came to him before his victim was buried. So be it ever ! His 
accomplices are known and must be punished. 



22 

assassin. The same journal runs a parallel between him 
and John Brown. Well, Virginia executed John Brown 
— its own precedent is fatal to its own client ! 

Let justice be done on the leaders of rebellion. Have 
done with the miserable cant of curing those perjured 
conspirators with kindness. Libby Prison mined under 
Federal captives, the starved skeletons of our slowly mur- 
dered kinsmen, the grave of Lincoln, and the gaping 
wounds of Seward are your answer. It must be taught 
men for all time that treason is, in tins life, unpardonable! 
It is all crimes in one. In this case it is without the glit- 
ter of seeming chivalry for its relief. It has had nothing 
knightly. It has conspired to starve prisoners, has plot- 
ted conflagrations which were to consume, in one dread 
holocaust, the venerable matron, the gray-haired sire and 
the mother with her babe; lias resorted to poison, the 
knife of the cut-throat ami the pistol of the assassin. 
Xo treason was ever so repulsively foul, bo reekingly 
corrupt. For its great leaders, the block and the halter; 
for its chieftains, military and civic, of the second elass, 
perpetual banishment with confiscation of their goods, 
for all who have volunteered to fight against the Union 
perpetual disfranchisement — these are the demands of a 
long-suffering people. 

The case of treason-sympathizers among us is one of 
grave moment. It is hard to bear their sneer- ami 
patiently to listen to their covert treason. It i^ a ques- 
tion whether the limit of toleration has not been passed. 
The era of assassination has been commenced. Be sure 
that any man who will excusean assassin, will himself do 

foul murder when he can shoot from behind a hedge, or 



23 

strike a victim in the back. It is matter of self-defence 
to cast such from our midst. Let us have no violence, 
no lawlessness, but such persons must be persuaded to 
depart from its. "They are gentlemen." Booth was 
courtly in speech and mien. Have they been State 
officers? So has Walsh, whose house was a disunion 
arsenal. The time has come when we cannot permit men 
in sympathy with armed rebellion, which employs the 
assassin, to dwell in our midst. 

Abraham Lincoln is no more. His work is done. We 
may not comprehend the mystery which permitted his 
removal at such an hour, in such a way. God hideth 
himself wondrously, and sometimes seems to stand afar 
from His truth and His cause when most needed. 

Our leader is gone. His work is finished, and it may 
be that his Providential mission was fully accomplished. 
His memory is imperishably fragrant. Washington — 
Lincoln ! Who shall say which name shall shine 
brighter in the firmament of the historic future ! » 

He is dead ! In the Presidential Mansion are being 
said words of solemn admonition and godly counsel. In 
a few hours his remains will be on their way to sleep in 
their Illinois grave! 

Dead! "How is the strong staff broken and the 
beautiful rod!" 

Pray devoutly for the smitten widow and fatherless 
children of our Chief Magistrate. They are sorely stricken 
and God alone can heal them. To them it is not the 
loss of the Chief Magistrate that makes this hour so 
sad, but that they have no more a husband or a father! 



24 

And now that these lias been sorrow in all the lanclj 
and the death-angel in all its homes, from the humblest to 
the highest, is not our expiation well-nigh wrought, and 
will not our Father have compassion upon us'. J 

Let us devoutly pray the King of nations to guide our 
nation through its remaining struggle ! It may be lie 
means to show us that He alone is the Savior ! 

Let us implore Divine guidance upon Mr. Lincoln's 
successor, Andrew Johnson, President of the United 
States. He was faithful amid the faithless. He Mas 
tnu' to the Union when few in his section had for it 
aughl but curses. Pray for him. He comes to power at 
a critical time and needs wisdom from above. Confide in 
him. lb' will surely rise above the one error which tem- 
porarily drew him down. He is only hated by traitors, 
and when they hate, it is s:ife for loyal men to trust. 

By and by we may understand all this. Now it p:h<i'> 
comprehension, but we have seen so many manifestations 
of God's supervising agency when we least looked for it, 
that we nmy safely trust Him. He means to save us. 
Nay, blessed be His name, lie has saved as! 

His grand purposes will go forward. The wrath of 
man shall praise Him, and the remainder of wrath will He 

restrain. Remember, and take heart as yon remember, the 
ringing line of Whittier. 

"<;, hI's errands never 1'iil." 
He w 1 1. . rides upon the whirlwind and directs the 
Btorm, is neither dead nor sire ping, and He is a < loci who 
never compromises with wrong, and never abdicates His 
throne. 






